Does anyone remember when remote desktop was still Citrix Framework (MetaFrame, RDP 4.0 whatever the heck it was called)? Back then I was happy to have the ability to access the box remotely, no more driving in the middle of the night through a rain storm to restart IIS. The one glaring omission in Terminal Services was the lack of file transfer. Yup, I'm connected to the server, but I'll have to ftp this file, which means I'll have to configure ftp, if the server doesnt have it, etc. I was very pleasently surprised when version 5.2 added local resource mapping. Yay, I could finally copy files between computers using remote desktop. Lately I've found that many people I assumed knew this, in fact did not. Hence my reason for sharing this with everyone.
To map your local hard drives using Remote Desktop (RDP) (Terminal Services)
- Open Remote Desktop (Start > All Programs > Accessories > Communication > Remote Desktop Connection) Click Options
- Put a checkmark in Disk Drives
- Now connect to the remote client and when you open Windows Explorer and Shazam! There are your local drives.
Is that simple!
Tip: If you know you'd like to always have your drives available whenever you use Remote Desktop, you can make this change and Save As Default.rdp in your "My Documents" folder (It will ask you to overwrite the existing copy, go ahead), this applies for any default settings you might want to set, Display Resolution, Domain, Printers, Etc.